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Kathleen Madigan talks about her stand-up act, style and inspirations

By: Michael Grossberg

The Columbus Dispatch - October 05, 2011 11:29 AM

“Sarcastic and fun.”
That’s how Kathleen Madigan describes her observational stand-up act, which covers everything
from the economy, politics and sports to her crazy father and funny family.
The St. Louis native, 45, will perform Friday to the Riffe Center’s Capitol Theatre.
Madigan, who I interviewed recently for a Monday Oct. 3 Life cover Q&A feature, also
offered interesting and revealing answers to several other questions that are worth sharing here in
Theater Talk.

Kathleen Madigan. File photo

Q: What subjects does your act cover?
A: My family, sports, the places I’ve been traveling, pretty much everything going on in the
world.
On the road for 20 years, I’ve been everywhere, from the south to out west and Canada and
Mexico. We certainly have a lot of empty space. When people say we don’t have room for new people,
they’ve clearly never driven across the country. The Dakotas are empty. Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma
are pretty empty. There’s plenty of room.

Q: How has your comedy evolved?
A: Just from doing it so much, I’m more confident. The topics are usually the same and my
delivery’s kind of the same, maybe just less lag time and a more solid set.

Q: How do you describe your style of comedy?
A: It’s not like in the ‘80s, when people used to do what they called observational humor. I
don’t call it that. I’d call it sarcastic and fun.

Q: You’ve often come to Columbus to perform at the Funny Bone Club, but in recent years you’v
e also appeared a lot on late-night television. How do you compare performing on television versus
onstage at a club?
A: Playing a club is a thousand times more fun. The club is dark and everybody’s got a drink
and is ready for fun. On TV, it’s bright lights and everyone is staring at the cameras and the
people are too far away. Everything on television is awkward. You have to approach the rhythm
faster.
Every comic will tell you, if you do Letterman, don’t do a “tag” (one more punch line after
the big punch line on the same topic.) The audiences are cued up to know to laugh, if you say one
more thing, they don’t know what’s happening... I think I’ve done The Tonight Show 14 times and
each time is as important because I need to keep coming back.

Q: What’s your pattern of stand-up delivery?
A For the most part, I speak in 20-second cadences, with 90 percent of the things that come
out my mind taking 20 seconds. But I didn’t plan that. It’s just how I speak. Sometimes, for some
jokes, I might speak for a minute or a minute and a half.

Q: Does your stand-up act change from month to month?
A: I like to vary it up so the audience will want to come back and see me next time. I don’t
want to get bored. Some comedians have been doing the same act for 20 years and I just don’t
understand that.

Q: What comedians did you most admire when growing up?
A: I didn’t think about comedians ‘til my teenage years. I saw Roseanne on
The Tonight Show and thought she was funny, but I didn’t realize you could do that as a
job.

Q: When did you realize that?
A: At 22 or 23, I just went to an open-mike night as a goof-off thing, and a guy told me I
should come back because I’m good. I thought maybe I can make extra money doing that. One thing
just kept leading to another.

Kathleen Madigan. File photo.

Q: What comedians do you most respect today?
A: I really like Louis Black because he’s very passionate and funny about what he does. I
love Ron White because what he says is real. Wanda Sykes makes me laugh hard. I love Jim Gaffigan
because he’s silly and goofy. Greg Warren is an up-and-coming guy who I think is really funny. And
a bunch of people who aren’t famous...

Q: Do you have any desire to appear in movies, as so many comedians do?
Q: Being in a movie would be fun... Once. But the amount of waiting! You sit around on your
ass for hours on end. I don’t think I have enough patience for other forms of performance.
Plus, you can’t even set goals. Ten years ago, who knew that Sirius radio would exist? They
play me all the time and I won a goofy award. I could never have said I want to win a Sirius award
years ago. Who knows what will exist five minutes form now or a year from now? I don’t think radio
or TV will exist years from now. I say just let things happen and hope you’re involved.

Q: What makes a good joke?
A: I don’t know what the secret is. There’s no one type of thing. I could laugh at Wanda
Sykes or Louis Black and they have a completely different sense of humor. I think I have to like
the person to go with what they say.

Q: What happens when a joke falls flat?
A: I usually say something about the fact that it just fell flat. Sometimes they might not
get it, but it’s funny to me. It happens. What are you going to do?

IF YOU GOKathleen Madigan will perform at 8 p.m. Friday Oct. 7 in the Riffe Center’s Capitol Theatre,
77 S. High St.
Tickets cost $26.50 to $33.50 at Ticketmaster outlets (800-745-3000;
www.ticketmaster.com)